Of the Conservative Party’s 320 MPs, 7 were absent from the vote or abstained, 6 of the Liberal Democrat’s 8 MPs voted for and all 53 of the SNP’s MPs voted against. 66 Labour MPs voted for the air strikes; here are the names of the 66 Labour war mongers, with some prominent names emboldened:

Who is Lucy the Australopithecus: How related are we to the 3.2 million-year-old hominid?

Despite looking drastically different to modern humans, Australopiths like Lucy walked upright and even used tools

Despite her short stature and hirsute frame, Lucy the Australopithecus afarensis, whose discovery is today commemorated with a Google Doodle, was from a species that could be a forerunner to modern humans.

As her named suggests, Lucy came from the Australopithecus genus, and was a member of the Hominini tribe, just like us.

Lucy was one of the later Australopiths, and is believed to have lived in what is now Ethiopia around 3.2 million years ago – roughly 800,000 years after her species first evolved.

Although the remains of Lucy are currently held in the National Museum in Addis Ababa, not far from where she was found, other members of her species were much better-travelled – animals from the same genus spread throughout Africa, before becoming extinct around 2 million years ago.

Despite our obvious differences, modern humans and Lucy have one important similarity – we both walk upright.

Bipedal movement is a very human quality, and scientists immediately recognised that Lucy could walk after studying the structure of her knees and the shape of her spine.

It’s widely believed that one Australopithecus genus was the ancestor of the Homo genus, which comprises modern humans, as well as now-extinct species like Homo habilis and Neanderthal man.

However, it’s not known for sure which Australopithecus species gave rise to Homo – but since Homo evolved around 2.8 million years ago, it’s possible that our two species are related in some way.

At her discovery, it was thought that Lucy could be the oldest direct ancestor of modern humans – another stepping-stone towards the ‘missing link’, the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees.

It’s since turned out that we probably split from chimps much earlier, maybe as early as 13 million years ago.

There were many different hominid species living around this period, often interacting or even breeding with each other, making it hard to find our true common ancestor.

At any rate, the discovery of Lucy’s two-legged walking and her well-preserved remains brought us one step closer to understanding where we came from.

]]>https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/lucy-in-the-sky-discovered-41-years-ago-today/feed/0gingerblokeblogA model of Lucy the Australopithecus at the Field Museum in ChicagoParis Attacks 13/11/2015 – In Pictureshttps://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-13112015-in-pictures/
https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-13112015-in-pictures/#respondSat, 14 Nov 2015 08:51:34 +0000http://gingerblokeblog.com/?p=7597Continue reading →]]>WARNING: READERS MAY FIND SOME OF THE IMAGES BELOW UPSETTING

Our thoughts are with those innocents who were injured or lost their lives last night and with their families.

Police continue to search for accomplices who might still be at large.

Two hundred people were injured, 80 of them seriously.

Shootings and explosions were reported in six locations across the city, including the Stade de France in northern Paris, where two suicide attacks and a bombing took place as the national team played Germany in a friendly football match.

The majority of victims died after a mass shooting inside the Bataclan concert venue.

Shootings also took place in restaurants and other sites in the centre of the city

Around the world, people are reacting to the news of the attacks. These candles were left in San Francisco, California. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

A dead victim covered by a blanket lies outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Friday. Associate Press

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https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-13112015-in-pictures/feed/0gingerblokeblogMedics evacuate an injured person close to Le Bataclan.Spectators on the pitch as news circulates of the attack outside the stadium.Spectators gather on the pitch of the Stade de France stadium following the match between France and Germany, after hearing news of the attacks.People run after hearing what are believed to be explosions or gun shots near Place de la RépubliqueMembers of the French fire brigade help an injured person near the Bataclan concert hall.France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve (left) and president Francois Hollande (right) attend an emergency meeting in the security control room at the Stade de France stadium.Bodies are covered with blankets on a street.People are hidden by police in the basement of a bar during a moment of tension when officers had to empty the streets.Police detain people near Rue AlibertAround the world, people are reacting to the news of the attacks. These candles were left in San Francisco, California.Hackers, Anonymous, public ally out alleged US KKK Politicianshttps://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/hackers-anonymous-public-ally-out-alleged-us-kkk-politicians/
https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/hackers-anonymous-public-ally-out-alleged-us-kkk-politicians/#respondMon, 02 Nov 2015 20:32:17 +0000http://gingerblokeblog.com/2015/11/02/hackers-anonymous-public-ally-out-alleged-us-kkk-politicians/Continue reading →]]>from US Uncut

Several prominent US Senators and mayors have been outed as members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other racist groups by the hacktivist collective Anonymous, and the group hints that more politicians and public figures will be named in the near future.
In a new post on document-dumping site pastebin, Anonymous names US Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Tx.), Dan Coats (R-In.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) as members of the KKK. Anonymous also outed several mayors of major US cities, including Madeline Rogero of Knoxville, Tennessee; Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky; Paul D. Fraim of Norfolk, Virginia; Kent Guinn of Ocala, Florida; and Tom Henry of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Thom Tillis, who is listed as a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in Thornton, was North Carolina’s Speaker of the House before being elected to the US Senate in 2014. Tillis was behind the implementation of numerous far-right policies in the Tar Heel State including voter ID laws, public education cuts, restrictions on abortion that were later struck down by federal judges, tax hikes on low-income earners to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, among others.
John Cornyn, who Anonymous claims is affililiated with the United White Knights of the KKK, is the current Majority Whip, making him one of the most powerful members of the US Senate. Johnny Isakson is listed as a member of the Original Knight Riders of the KKK. Isakson served as a U.S. Congressman for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District between 1999 and 2005. He currently serves as Georgia’s senior US Senator, and is up for re-election in 2016. Dan Coats is Indiana’s senior US Senator, and is listed as a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK — along with Thom Tillis.

Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky, who Anonymous says is a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, is openly gay. Gray vehemently denied any ties to the KKK on his official Twitter feed:

Mayor Jim Gray @JimGrayLexKY

I am opposed to everything the KKK stands for. I have no idea where this information came from, but wherever it came from, it is wrong.

Relief groups’ efforts to assess the damage were hindered by an unstable security situation that has left much of the affected areas unsafe for international aid workers and government troops.

But the Taliban, which have stepped up their Islamist insurgency against the Western-backed government in Kabul this year, indicated they would not stand in the way of aid efforts.

“The Islamic Emirate calls on our good-willed countrymen and charitable organizations to not hold back in providing shelter, food and medical supplies to the victims,” the group said in a condolence message to quake victims, using its formal name.

“And it similarly orders its mujahideen in the affected areas to lend their complete help.”

Authorities confirmed 228 deaths in Pakistan while in Afghanistan, the death toll had climbed to more than 80. At least 4,000 houses and compounds had been destroyed or damaged, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said.

The toll could climb as road and communications links are restored to isolated villages. As a harsh winter sets in across the rugged Hindu Kush mountains where the earthquake struck, the plight of thousands left homeless is becoming more serious.

“We have insufficient food and other aid,” said Abdul Habib Sayed Khil, chief of police in Kunar, one of the worst-hit provinces, where 42 people were confirmed dead. “It has been raining for four days and the weather is very cold.”

In Kabul, the capital, NATO officials said they were helping Afghan security forces plan relief operations.

In Pakistan, where landslides and heavy rain and snow over the weekend had already left thousands of tourists stranded in mountainous areas of the north, the country’s well-equipped military was heavily involved in relief efforts.

Military spokesman General Asim Bajwa said assessment teams were still surveying damage and troops were working to help reopen the Karakoram highway linking Pakistan to China, after it was blocked by landslides.

Two army helicopters joined the relief mission and a special air force plane flew to the Chitral region, where 29 people were killed and more than 200 injured.

The earthquake struck almost exactly six months after Nepal suffered its worst quake on record, on April 25. Including the toll from a major aftershock in May, 9,000 people lost their lives there and 900,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

Monday’s initial quake of magnitude 7.5 was followed by seven aftershocks, of intensity ranging as high as 4.8, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The latest aftershock came just before dawn on Tuesday.

The United States and Iran were among countries that offered humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, which already depends heavily on foreign aid after decades of war wrecked its economy and infrastructure.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. Agency for International Development was ready to provide emergency shelter and relief supply kits.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said a relief package would be announced after the damage had been assessed.

“The government is capable enough to rescue and rehabilitate those affected by the earthquake and every effort will be made to help fellow citizens in distress,” Sharif said during a visit to the district of Shangla, where at least 38 people perished.

]]>https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/the-taliban-will-not-stand-in-the-way-of-aid-efforts-for-pak-afghan-border-earthquake-victims/feed/0gingerblokeblogSaudi-led air strike hits Yemen Hospitalhttps://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/saudi-led-air-strike-hits-yemen-hospital/
https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/saudi-led-air-strike-hits-yemen-hospital/#respondTue, 27 Oct 2015 12:24:06 +0000http://gingerblokeblog.com/?p=7592Continue reading →]]>A Yemeni hospital run by medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was bombed in a Saudi-led air strike, wrecking the facility and wounding several people, the hospital director said on Tuesday.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March to try to restore its government after its toppling by Houthi forces but the civilian death toll has escalated since then, alarming the United Nations and human rights groups.

“The MSF facility in Saada, (north) Yemen was hit by several air strikes last night with patients and staff inside the facility,” Medecins sans Frontieres said in a tweet.

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Yemen’s state news agency Saba, run by the Iran-allied Houthis whom the Arab coalition is fighting, quoted the Heedan hospital director as saying several people were injured in the attack, which occurred in Houthi-controlled north Yemen.

“The air raids resulted in the destruction of the entire hospital with all that was inside – devices and medical supplies – and the moderate wounding of several people,” Ali Mughli said.

Saba said other air strikes hit a nearby girls school and damaged several civilian homes.

It was not immediately possible to confirm that report, and a coalition spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

An MSF hospital was bombed in an American air strike in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan on Oct. 3, killing 22 people including 12 MSF staff.

U.S. President Barack Obama apologised for the attack, but MSF continues to call for an independent humanitarian commission to investigate what it calls a war crime.

“International humanitarian law is not about “mistakes”. It is about intention, facts and why … It is precisely because attacking hospitals in war zones is prohibited that we expected to be protected,” MSF director Joanne Liu said this month.

Seven months of air strikes in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and other U.S.-allied Gulf Arab countries have yet to loosen the Houthis’ grip on the capital Sanaa and make headway towards restoring the now Saudi-based Yemeni government to power.

The United States and Britain are supporting the coalition with intelligence and both are long-time arms suppliers to their Gulf Arab allies.

Human rights groups have voiced concern at the mounting death toll from aerial bombing and ground fighting raging across Yemen. Amnesty International has recommended an arms embargo on coalition states, citing repeated bombing of Yemeni civilians.

In a separate bombing on Monday, residents reported that a coalition air strike killed Haradh hospital director Yasser Wathab and two people he was travelling with in a car in the northwestern province of Hajja. They said the group were en route to treat patients killed by an earlier air strike.

And the Saudi civil defence ministry said on its Twitter account that several shells fired from Houthi-held north Yemen over the border into the Saudi city of Najran killed two foreign residents and wounding a Saudi citizen.

More than 5,600 people have died in Yemen’s conflict and shuttle diplomacy by a United Nations envoy has yet to secure a political solution or reduce the intensity of combat.

]]>https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/saudi-led-air-strike-hits-yemen-hospital/feed/0gingerblokeblog“Left Wing” Lords Scupper Tory Plans to Punish the Poorhttps://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/left-wing-lords-scupper-tory-plans-to-punish-the-poor/
https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/left-wing-lords-scupper-tory-plans-to-punish-the-poor/#respondTue, 27 Oct 2015 12:19:46 +0000http://gingerblokeblog.com/?p=7590Continue reading →]]>The government has been dealt a major blow after the House of Lords voted to delay tax credit cuts and to compensate those affected in full.

Peers voted by 289 votes to 272 to provide full financial redress to the millions of recipients affected.

They earlier inflicted a second defeat by backing a pause until an independent study of the impact was carried out.

George Osborne said he would heed the outcome of the vote, but said it raised “constitutional issues”.

The chancellor criticised “unelected Labour and Lib Dem lords” for defying the will of the elected House of Commons, but said he would set out how the proposed changes to tax credits would be modified in response in next month’s Autumn Statement.

“I said I would listen and we will listen to the concerns that have been raised,” he said.

“I believe we can achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.. I’m determined to deliver that lower welfare economy the British people want to see.”

But the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it was a “very bad result” for the government but it was not clear what it meant for recipients of tax credits.

Labour reacted by calling for a “full u-turn” over the tax credit changes.

‘Powerful message’

On a dramatic evening in the House of Lords, peers threw out a “fatal motion” tabled by the Lib Dems, which would have blocked the changes entirely.

If it had passed, the Lib Dem motion would have stopped the £4.4bn cuts to tax credits in their tracks and sent the proposals back to the drawing board.

Image captionOne Conservative MP said the Lords’ actions were a “constitutional outrage”

But peers backed calls, by 307 votes to 277, led by crossbench peer Baroness Meacher for the cuts to be put on hold pending an independent analysis.

They also supported a Labour plan to provide transitional financial support for at least three years for those likely to be affected.

Baroness Meacher told Sky News that the government was “pulling the rug” from under the feet of working people, saying the outcome sent a “powerful message” to MPs to think again.

Ministers argued peers did not have the right to block financial measures approved by the House of Commons, with Lords leader Baroness Stowell telling them the “financial primacy” of the Commons had been in place for 300 years and to ignore this would be an “unprecedented” challenge.

Image captionThe ex-chancellor called for “aspects of this measure to be reconsidered and changed”

‘Economic vision’

Urging peers to reject the critical motions, she said the squeeze on tax credits should not be treated “in isolation” but was part of the government’s “economic strategy and vision for the country”.

But speaking during a three-hour debate, former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson urged “tweaks” to the policy to reduce the “financial harm” to those on the lowest incomes, saying “it is not just listening which is required, but change”.

Of course, when the left was calling for House of Lords reforms at the turn of the century, as launched under New Labour plans, the Tories staunchly defended the Lords, where most of them planned on ending up when the public could no longer stomach them in the Commons, by claiming that the Upper House “defended British Democracy” and that it was a very important part of our constitution.

Now that the vile planned Tax Credit reforms have been delayed by the Lords due to the wide belief in the house that reforms were largely harmful and unfair to a majority of those that would be affected, the Lords has potentially caused a “Constitutional Crisis” and has been branded undemocratic by Tory Media Attack Dog, the Daily Mail.

]]>https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/left-wing-lords-scupper-tory-plans-to-punish-the-poor/feed/0gingerblokeblogCommons and LordsLord LawsonTrust the Tories with the Economy? UK economic growth slows to 0.5% in third quarter!https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/trust-the-tories-with-the-economy-uk-economic-growth-slows-to-0-5-in-third-quarter/
https://gingerblokeblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/trust-the-tories-with-the-economy-uk-economic-growth-slows-to-0-5-in-third-quarter/#respondTue, 27 Oct 2015 11:47:22 +0000http://gingerblokeblog.com/?p=7575Continue reading →]]>The Tories will look after the economy, we can trust them to make sure that “damage” caused by the last government………no they mean Labour?…………or is it the Coalition?……..well it wasn’t the Tories that made a mess; nor was it the global economic slow down right? Anyway, as with all things political, the Tories will take all the credit for the economy growing and then blame the global markets when things do no go in their favour:

The UK economy’s growth slowed in the third quarter of the year, weighed down by the performance of the construction and manufacturing sectors.

Gross domestic product grew by 0.5% between July and September,the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, down from 0.7% in the second quarter.

The rate was also lower than the 0.6% growth predicted by many analysts.

Part of the slowdown was due to the biggest fall in construction output in three years, a drop of 2.2%.

The service sector, the biggest part of the economy, grew by 0.7%.

However, output in the manufacturing sector declined by 0.3%.

“The slowdown is being led by the manufacturing sector, which is seeing a renewed recession as output has now fallen for three consecutive quarters, suffering a 0.3% decline in the three months to September,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at research firm Markit.

“Manufacturing output has so far fallen 0.9% this year. Producers are struggling as weak demand in many overseas markets, notably China and other emerging nations, is being exacerbated by the appreciation of sterling.”

‘Steady recovery’

The drop in construction output could have been influenced by particularly wet weather in August, the ONS said.

“Overall, the picture of a steady recovery in the UK economy continues and we would now expect GDP growth of around 2.4% for the year as a whole,” said John Hawksworth, chief economist at accountants PwC.

According to a poll by news agency Reuters on Monday, economists have pushed back their average forecast of when the Bank of England will start to raise interest rates to the second quarter of 2016 from the first quarter.

This is the first estimate of economic growth for the July-to-September period and makes use of only half the data which will be used for the final estimate.

Chancellor George Osborne said there were more “tough decisions” to come and that his Autumn Statement, due on 25 November, would include “long-term investments for the future”.

Sterling fell to $1.5309 after the data, before rebounding to $1.5325, which is 0.2% lower than on Monday.

“The market has pushed the first rate hike way out into the future, so I don’t think today’s GDP figures are going to have much impact in terms of that timing,” said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi currency economist Lee Hardman.